The Importance of Circulating and Presenting Manuscripts: Evidence from the Accounting Literature

Abstract

Editors exhort authors to circulate and present their working papers to colleagues before submitting them to journals (Zimmerman 1989; Green et al. 2002). Authors heeding such advice are said to increase the likelihood of getting their work published and making their research, once published, more influential (Zimmerman 1989). While evidence regarding these matters is of keen importance to authors, editors, and administrators, no research exists showing that circulating and presenting manuscripts increases their probability of being accepted in accounting journals or, when published, their influence on stimulating other research. I present such evidence by perusing acknowledgments in premier accounting journals. I examine the relation between circulating and presenting manuscripts and the probability of acceptance by relating acknowledgments of 305 papers submitted to The Accounting Review during June 2002–May 2003 to the editor's reject versus revise and resubmit decision. I examine the relation between circulating and presenting manuscripts and an article's influence by relating the acknowledgments in 256 articles published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, and Journal of Accounting and Economics to citations to these articles. My two analyses of acknowledgments to institutions, conferences, and individuals yield similar results. I find that papers presented at more workshops are more likely to be invited back to The Accounting Review, and that papers published in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, or Journal of Accounting Research generate more citations if they were presented previously at more workshops.